Singer/Songwriter, author, blogger, and just generally amazing

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Music

Ando Valentine has been an avid lover of music for his entire life. At age 6, he began learning to play rhythm guitar from his father, Chuck Poore. At age 9, he began a 10-year series of piano lessons. As a teenager, he and some of his friends formed a band, and during the span of about 3 years of the band’s existence, Ando expanded and began teaching himself bass guitar and drums (though he does not consider himself anything above amateur on those instruments).

In 2001, Ando finally began writing songs of his own, jamming with a series of musically-inclined friends to refine this series of musical efforts, the most influential being Jeff Lowrance, with whom Ando collaborated many times under the band name “FullyClothed Men” (a tribute to one of their favorite bands, Barenaked Ladies). In 2005, Ando and his friend Brian Moseley, using the best equipment they had available at the time, recorded a handful of Ando’s songs. These sessions, while far from perfect, remain the best-quality recordings available of Ando’s work.

In June 2015, Ando was tapped to play an hour-long show at Sci-Fi Summer Con, which prompted him to revitalize the musical side of his life, which also sparked his creativity and enabled him to begin writing new songs again. This coincided with preparing for a long-overdue trip to reunite with Jeff and re-form FCM.

Eventually, Ando hopes to rent studio time to record more of his songs, and even form another band. For now, he just wants to get what he has recorded heard.

If you would like to hear Ando’s rough, unpolished practice recordings, you can hear them on SoundCloud

If you would like to see (old) videos of Ando jamming, they are available on either YouTube or Vimeo.